All About Texture

Some quilts are all about color; others depend on texture to enhance the design. The Earthenware Tiles quilt, designed by Lisa Bassett, focuses on the patterns and textures of our Elemental Lines collection for interest. What a great design for the fall issue of Easy Quilts magazine--autumn is right around the corner and this quilt is sure to get you in the mood! We love how the earthy tones pop against the red wall in the photo from Easy Quilts below; the muted palette and eye-catching design would make a beautiful wall hanging in any home. 

"Earthenware Tiles" designed by Lisa Bassett and made/machine quilted by Heather Porter;
featured in Easy Quilts Fall 2014

Q. What attracted you to the Elemental Lines collection? Do you have a favorite print within the collection?

Lisa: I'm usually attracted to very bright colors, so I wanted to mix it up and work with a collection that is outside my preferred color palette. I think my favorite piece is 120-0251. I absolutely love the texture those spiky flowers create.

Q. Can you talk about how you came up with the quilt design?

Lisa: Our signature, if you will, is making quilt designs that look harder than they are. I started with an idea of a basic shape (in this case a square in a square) and played with ways to make a simple block look dynamic. Turning every other block gives the quilt nice movement. Plus, I included a little piecing trick in the pattern that makes it easy to sew two square-in-a-square blocks together without the usual bulk in the seams.

Q. Did you find it challenging to work in a muted palette? How did you make the palette work?

Lisa: As I said, I love working with bright and bold fabrics, so this was a bit of a challenge. Working on this pattern, I really had to focus on using the different textures to provide contrast in the quilt. Where I usually use colors to provide contrast (yellow and blue together, for example) I focused more on the different textures of tans and browns in the fabric. I did love having that nice black as the background, it really makes the lighter fabrics in the quilt pop. In the end I really enjoyed the neutral tones.

Q.  What do you like best about the quilt?

Lisa:  I love the way I pieced the square blocks together. Not to make it sound like bragging, I'm sure I'm not the first! I had fun putting this quilt together, it went together very quickly and easily.

Q. Can you talk about the machine quilting? 

Lisa: The quilt is very angular, so I liked the idea of using a quilting design that had some curves in it, to provide a little variation and movement. I decided to use an all over design to continue with the theme of a quick and easy quilt.

Q. What do you envision the quilt being used for? 

Lisa: Since it is a small quilt, I think it would look great being used as a large wall hanging. 

Find the entire Elemental Lines collection here.

Learn more about Relatively Creative Patterns designers Lisa Bassett and Heather Porter here.

Purchase the kit for Earthenware Tiles here.

Find Easy Quilts magazine here.